#peakoil Saudi Arabia’s Oil Pricing Power Makes It The Country To Watch In 2015: 2014 was the year of the grea...

2014 was the year of the great oil crash. The price of a barrel of crude, which was higher than $90 in January, fell under $55 in December, a five-year low. While the crashing oil prices severely hurt many oil-producing nations, consumers in the U.S. benefited from gas prices that had not been this low since May 2009. The futures of both producers and consumers now depend largely on the actions of one country: Saudi Arabia. The second-biggest oil producer in the world after the U.S., it will likely use its position in the global oil market to make political gains in 2015, especially in the Middle East. The Saudi kingdom may not have enjoyed this much power since the oil crises of the 1970s, when the nations of the industrialized world found the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, dominated by the Saudis, had the power to bring their economies to a halt. Oil ...